Simon Holt

Born: 1958

Nationality: British

Publisher: Chester Music

Shortly after graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, Simon Holt was firmly established on the new music circuit with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and the Nash Ensemble. Influenced by Messiaen, Xenakis and Feldman as well as visual artists such as Goya, Giacometti and Brancusi, his music is complex, dramatic and often enigmatic. The intricate internal structures of his works are concealed by a seemingly impulsive nature. During the 1980s he worked primarily in complex soundworlds, while since the 1990s the dense textures have often been offset by Feldmanesque moments of calm, that Holt refers to as ‘still centres’.

Holt was Composer in Association at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales 2008 - 2014 and during that time wrote a number of successful orchestral works including St Vitus in the Kettle, Centauromachy, The Yellow Wallpaper and Morpheus Wakes..